2011-07-29 - How Saved Am I?

Part 2

With All Our Heart

With all our heart, we are saved for eternal life. Belief is of the heart.
Now when we in modern times think of the heart we think of the emotions like
love. But that's not Biblical thinking. Biblical thinking is that the emotions
were in the stomach. Some 10 years ago as my beautiful bride walked in the
back of a church in Fairburn, I got butterflies in my stomach. Not one fluttered
in my chest. I was filled with emotion in my stomach. That's how we see it
in the Bible too. Genesis 43:30 says Joseph's bowels did yearn upon his brother.
The woman who did not want Solomon to split the child had a earning in her
bowels according to 1 Kings 3:26. Job talks of his bowels boiling with emotions.
In Proverbs 12:10 the tender mercies are bowels in Hebrew. In the Song of
Solomon 5:4, the woman's bowels move for her love. And also in Jeremiah and
Lamentations we see emotions in troubled bowels. (Jer. 31:20, Lam 1:20, 2:11)
As it is now, the mind was the center of reason. So the heart, halfway between
the stomach and the mind, is where the two met. It's the center of the being.
When reason and emotions surrender to faith there comes belief in the heart.
That's why in John 14:1 Jesus encourages us, "Let not
your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." He
doesn't worry about our stomach tied in knots or our brain trying to wrap
around something. He says don't let your heart be troubled, just believe
in me.

Romans 10:9-10

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.

For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and
with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

With all our heart we enter a new life. We're ankle deep in the river of
life. The eternalness of life, the essence of salvation, is promised when
we love God with all our heart. We live but life keeps getting better and
better if we're willing to continue giving our all.

With All Our Soul

The soul is all that doesn't die with the body. It is our heart, mind, bowels.
It is our talents and our quirks. It is our personality. In Genesis 2:7,
Adam was a lump of clay until God breathed life into him and he became a
living soul.

As the wonder of salvation hits us and we desire more we get more.
Isaiah 55:3 says, "Incline your
ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an
everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." As
we draw closer to God and desire him we get more life. Our salvation experience
is enriched our soul becomes more and more alive. Giving all our soul is
yielding totally to him.

Mark 8:34-36

And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples
also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself,
and take up his cross, and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever
shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save
it.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul?

The soul, that which makes us life and not just a lump, is given to us as
we give it to him. There must be a death to self. In a commentary on Mark,
William Lane wrote: "Jesus stipulated that those who wish to follow him must
be prepared to shift the center of gravity in their lives from a concern
for self to a reckless abandon to the will of God. The central thought in
self-denial is a disowning of any claim that may be urged by the self, a
sustained willingness to say 'No' to oneself in order to be able to say 'Yes'
to God. This involves a radical denunciation of all self-idolatry and of
every attempt to establish one's own life in accordance with the dictates
of the self." (William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, Grand Rapids,
MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974, 308) When Jesus has all our soul
our salvation is sweeter still but it still gets better.